1000 words in a picture?

In the article “Liar Liar Pants on Fire” by Errol Morris, he argues that a picture is not always worth one thousands word, but a picture without words can be meaningless. I agree with parts of his argument however disagree with other parts.

I enjoy how Morris makes the argument that a picture can be “true or false”. When you take it upon yourself to interpret a picture, you are not necessarily getting the complete truth or any truth at all. When the is a fact or caption next to the picture the reader/ viewer is able to get a much more accurate depiction of what the photo is actually portraying. Morris describes a photo like this is this quote “Without a caption, without a context, without some idea about what the picture is a picture of, I can't answer. I simply cannot talk about the photograph as being true or false independently of beliefs about the picture. A captionless photograph, stripped of all context, is virtually meaningless. I need to know more”.

Although I do I agree that a caption can add a lot of value to a photo, I do not believe that a photo is “virtually meaningless” without it. I believe that a picture is still worth a thousand words it just may not be the one thousand words it was originally purposed for. The viewer has the power to see what they want and a picture can be interpreted in so many ways. I think in a sense a picture is worth more words if there is not a caption added. Although Morris does have several good points I do not believe in what he is trying to convince me of. Pictures will always have meaning even if there are absolutely no words attachted.